EMT Twinning Partnership: MDMC Emergency Medical Team One Step Closer to WHO Classification
From 8 to 10 July of this year, a three-person pre-verification team from the WHO Office for the Western Pacific Region attended a full-scale EMT field rehearsal conducted by the Indonesian Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Center in Yogyakarta. This pre-verification visit by WHO is standard procedure to achieve global certification.
To achieve global certification, an Emergency Medical Team (EMT) must follow a comprehensive classification process established by the World Health Organization (WHO). The procedure is meant to ensure quality care adherence. Prior to the final verification, WHO visits the team for pre-verification, where they inspect progress made in areas such as logistics, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and deployment readiness. The exercise in the South of Java island was part of the twinning collaboration between Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Center (MDMC) and International Search and Rescue (I.S.A.R.) Germany. Both collaboration and the field rehearsal at Java have been part of the GHPP project “EMT Twinning, Training, Transfer of Knowledge” by the Robert Koch-Institute (RKI).
An expert team member from the twinning partner I.S.A.R. Germany joined the activity. I.S.A.R. Germany is an EMT Type1 fixed and was already classified in 2018. The purpose of its participation this year was to exchange experiences from the field and provide additional advice for the MDMC classification journey. The field rehearsal was also attended by an RKI colleague from the EMT National Focal Point team of the unit ZIG 3. In addition, representatives from the WHO Country Office Indonesia and a large group of observers from entities involved in emergency response in Indonesia were present.
On the first day, participants and guests took part in a scheduled visit to MDMC’s EMT warehouse. For the course of the following two days, the WHO, I.S.A.R., and other guests observed the MDMC fully setting up, operating, and dismantling their EMT. The exercise took place in the vicinity of the local community of Kulon Progo. In addition to providing health services to its community members, the field readiness of MDMC members was tested through several simulations. This included mass casualty management, handling patients with co-occurring medical and mental health conditions, trauma cases, and resuscitation. On the second day of the event, MDMC also presented a selection of their SOPs, which were then discussed with the pre-verifier team of WHO Western Pacific Region (WPRO) and with the support of the I.S.A.R. expert. The activity closed on the evening of the third day with a feedback session. During this session, the WHO WPRO guests shared their observations and advice in preparation for the final verification.
This field rehearsal demonstrated significant progress compared to the readiness training that was held in Yogyakarta in November 2024. The latter was also an EMT twinning activity where areas for improvement and enhancing opportunities were identified and successfully implemented in the meantime. The July activity marked a significant step in this twinning partnership journey towards MDMC’s verification as WHO-classified EMT. Apart from providing space for meaningful exchange among participants, it further delivered a valuable opportunity to visitors from Indonesian organisations to observe the exercise and learn about EMT. Moving forward, twinning partner MDMC is currently in the final preparation and revision phase before becoming an internationally classified EMT. The project team appreciates and celebrates this phase and partnership journey and hopes to mark the classification of the MDMC EMT together soon.
